


Redemption

by KillJoys



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Blood Mage, Gen, Mage Warden (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 13:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillJoys/pseuds/KillJoys
Summary: How can you look at me like that, Alistair? When I finally chose not to take a life.





	Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks this is my little exploration of character.   
> After spending so much time with Alistair, how can one not become a little soft hearted? After traveling for so long with Zevran, how can you not respect life?   
> I wanted to write this ever since, nearing the end of my 'chaotic evil' play through as a blood mage, in that scene where you can sacrifice a cage full of people just to get some gold and constitution, Zevran actually looks at the warden and says 'what the fxxk is wrong with you?'

"Will you let me do something fucking right for once in my life Alistair?"

His silence spoke volumes, punctuated by his rarely seen scowl. 

"Fine then, if you want to turn your back on everything Duncan fought and died for, then who am I to stop you?"

Sunzlek backed into her group of vagabonds as he stomped away, Queen Anora filling the awkward silence with her thanks and prayers for victory and peace as she dismissed the landsmeet. 

Silently again she sent a shaky thanks into Sun's ear for sparing the life of her traitorous father, something she'd hardly dared to hope for in recent days. 

"He'll be a soldier and a warden, it's still a death sentence, but it's a death that won't be wasted." Sun commented harshly as though to banish any gratitude from the woman, yet she still received a gentle smile.

It made her lips curl into a snarl when the image remained, flashing in her head as she shut her eyes to sleep. 

"She thanked me with a smile for not cutting her papa's head off."

Scoffing into Zev's hair when he asked her why her mouth was so turned down.

"Is that so incomprehensible?"

"No, just stupid. She and Alistair freaking deserve each other. What could I have done?"

Zev twisted his hips and turned to face her, running a hand down her bare chest along the Breast bone.

"You are troubled by this, but for some other reason I think. Tell me what angers you, love."

Sun silently allowed the steam of her anger dissipate, lowering the pressure in her chest before she replied.

"Didn't I do the right thing? Because it feels as though I have done irreparable damage, Alistair will never speak to me again for this."

"Ahh.. For this Loghain becoming a Warden himself?"

She nodded. Zev contemplated.

"Why did you choose this?"

Sun let her eyes settle on the wall ahead, her facial muscles were as relaxed as she could make them.

"I had to. I didn't want to... Go further… to becoming him." Her explanation didn't say enough, so she continued. "You stopped me from sacrificing those elves, in the alienage. It would have been so simple to just say yes and let the ritual continue, and I would have done it Zev. I don't remember a time when I've had second thoughts of taking power for myself."

"Why not?"

"You don't know?"

"Survival."

"Exactly. But there reached a point where I stopped needing to cling to every thread of power, Zev. Then I had to start making decisions about why I was doing it. I'm strong now, stronger, thanks to you and Duncan and Alistair.

"So here I am, finally not wanting to be the 'Savage maleficar' so I decided to not kill him even though it's what everyone told me to do." She felt him cling to her slightly and it suddenly made her skin crawl so she rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed facing the wall. 

"I won't fucking do it anymore Zev. I refuse to live under the thumb of the church, but... I'm not like Alistair, I'm not noble or kind or honourable, and the more I talk the more I realise how far I am from his idea of what a grey warden should be. At least Loghain was a good person once. If Al is going to complain about besmirching the wardens then he should have kicked me out a long time ago." she gestured dramatically with her growing frustration. "Is it so awful that I don't want to be the bad guy anymore? I'm a fucking blood mage! I'm practically worse than the blight according to some people and yet he's putting me down for not letting him kill the father of his bride-to-be? What a monster I am.

"I just wish I could punch his damn face in for being mad at me about this, doesn't he get how important it is for me? And now Morrigan is trying to save our bloody lives and he refuses to be part of it. What fool am I that he can make me so mad?"

Zevran needn't have said anything then, they both knew she'd answer her own questions. Yet when he laid his head down to the pillow he sighed quietly; so unlike him.

"Alistair is blinded by his hatred, this is understandable. But you must decide when is right for yourself, and so far you have shown you can. You spared me also, no?"

Her chuckle was heady with exhaustion from everything they'd come through till now. 

"Yes. You've made such a good pet." Sun forced herself to roll back into the warm sheets, making a space for him against her chest so she could stroke his hair and arms contentedly.  Zev nipped at her playfully in protest of being called her pet, but relaxed under the gentle treatment. 

"A Crow cannot be a very good pet."

"You're not a Crow."

Knowing it and feeling it were two different things, so hard to tell which was which even in the best of times.

Was she evil? Loghain and Howe were selling the elves into slavery, while she was going to allow them to be murdered for her own benefit. If anything what she had almost done would be considered infinitely worse. But those men, one dead and cold, the other blighted and possibly in the arms of Morrigan as they spoke; they would've never felt the threat a mage knows.

That guillotine; hanging by a thread.

Was it an excuse? Sun didn't want an excuse to be the way she was, she hated apologising. Zevran was an assassin greater than her, killed thousands, yet he respected each of those lives.

Sun just felt a cold distant touch of empathy as she habitually distanced herself from the thought that they were anything like her.

Sometimes she wondered if being tranquil would be so different; she supposed she wouldn't be able to enjoy the bloodlust so much.


End file.
